Hands up if you've heard that before; "Math is a language." Yeah? Tell me; how do you say "fuck off, already" in Math? How about "It was me. I knocked the milk over in the fridge and made that mess. I'm sorry." Has anybody written an Actual love poem in math - and I am Not talking about cheesy symbol constructs that represent a little sideways heart.
I'm not saying such things can't be expressed in mathematical terms, but after 4+ decades of hearing about math being a language, nobody yet has ever tried speaking it within earshot of me. Little wonder why, too. Strictly speaking, mathematics does fit the definition of language. It's a pretty loose definition, though.
The bigger mystery by far is why does math, or moreover those who study, use and seek to promote math, feel the need to associate it to language? Is this some kind of weird, sick, desperate attempt to legitimize math? How does one come to the opinion it needs to be legitimized? Math does plenty enough as it is without having to be "qualified" by the title of "a language." Like that's so special. We have 4,000+ of those lying around and that's just the human ones!
Anyways, I'm pro-math. I'm pro-language. What I'm not is pro-tentious. Seriously, math folk, if there is a point to re-iterating that math is a damn language, please Make It. But deep down, we know there isn't. It's just one of those things that you occasionally say to sound kind of deep and perhaps a little introspective.
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